Fundamentals of Database Systems

Seventh Edition

Chapter 1
Databases and Database
Users

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Learning Objectives
1.1 Types of Databases and Database Applications

1.2 Basic Definitions

1.3 Typical DBMS Functionality

1.4 Example of a Database (University)

1.5 Main Characteristics of the Database Approach

1.6 Types of Database Users

1.7 Advantages of Using the Database Approach

1.8 Historical Development of Database Technology

1.9 Extending Database Capabilities

1.10 When Not to Use Databases

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Types of Databases and Database Applications

• Traditional Applications:
– Numeric and Textual Databases

• More Recent Applications:

– Multimedia Databases
– Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
– Biological and Genome Databases
– Data Warehouses
– Mobile databases
– Real-time and Active Databases

• First part of book focuses on traditional applications

• A number of recent applications are described later in the book (for

example, Chapters 24,25,26,27,28,29)

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Recent Developments (1 of 2)

• Social Networks started capturing a lot of information

about people and about communications among people-
posts, tweets, photos, videos in systems such as:
– Facebook
– Twitter
– Linked-In
• All of the above constitutes data
• Search Engines- Google, Bing, Yahoo : collect their own
repository of web pages for searching purposes

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Recent Developments (2 of 2)

• New Technologies are emerging from the so-called

non-database software vendors to manage vast
amounts of data generated on the web:
• Big Data storage systems involving large clusters of
distributed computers (Chapter 25)
• NOSQL (Not Only SQL) systems (Chapter 24)
• A large amount of data now resides on the “cloud”
which means it is in huge data centers using thousands
of machines.

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Basic Definitions
• Database:
– A collection of related data.
• Data:
– Known facts that can be recorded and have an implicit meaning.

• Mini-world:
– Some part of the real world about which data is stored in a database.
For example, student grades and transcripts at a university.

• Database Management System (DBMS):

– A software package/ system to facilitate the creation and maintenance
of a computerized database.

• Database System:
– The DBMS software together with the data itself. Sometimes, the
applications are also included.
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Impact of Databases and Database Technology

• Businesses: Banking, Insurance, Retail, Transportation,

Healthcare, Manufacturing
• Service Industries: Financial, Real-estate, Legal,
Electronic Commerce, Small businesses
• Education: Resources for content and Delivery
• More recently: Social Networks, Environmental and
Scientific Applications, Medicine and Genetics
• Personalized Applications: based on smart mobile
devices

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Figure 1.1 Simplified database system environment

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Typical DBMS Functionality
• Define a particular database in terms of its data types, structures,
and constraints
• Construct or Load the initial database contents on a secondary
storage medium
• Manipulating the database:
– Retrieval: Querying, generating reports
– Modification: Insertions, deletions and updates to its content
– Accessing the database through Web applications
• Processing and Sharing by a set of concurrent users and
application programs – yet, keeping all data valid and consistent

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Application Activities Against a Database

• Applications interact with a database by generating

– Queries: that access different parts of data and
formulate the result of a request
– Transactions: that may read some data and “update”
certain values or generate new data and store that in
the database
• Applications must not allow unauthorized users to access
data
• Applications must keep up with changing user
requirements against the database

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Additional DBMS Functionality

• DBMS may additionally provide:

– Protection or Security measures to prevent
unauthorized access
– “Active” processing to take internal actions on data
– Presentation and Visualization of data
– Maintenance of the database and associated
programs over the lifetime of the database application
▪ Called database, software, and system
maintenance

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Example of a Database (with a Conceptual
Data Model) (1 of 2)
• Mini-world for the example:
– Part of a UNIVERSITY environment.
• Some mini-world entities:
– STUDENTs
– COURSEs
– SECTIONs (of COURSEs)
– (academic) DEPARTMENTs
– INSTRUCTORs

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Example of a Database (with a Conceptual
Data Model) (2 of 2)
• Some mini-world relationships:
– SECTIONs are of specific COURSEs
– STUDENTs take SECTIONs
– COURSEs have prerequisite COURSEs
– INSTRUCTORs teach SECTIONs
– COURSEs are offered by DEPARTMENTs
– STUDENTs major in DEPARTMENTs
• Note: The above entities and relationships are typically
expressed in a conceptual data model, such as the
ENTITY-RELATIONSHIP data model (see Chapters 3, 4)

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Figure 1.2 Example of a simple database (1 of 4)

COURSE

Course_name Course_number Credit_hours Department

Intro to Computer CS1310 4 CS
Science
Data Structures CS3320 4 CS
Discrete Mathematics MATH2410 3 MATH
Database CS3380 3 CS

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Figure 1.2 Example of a simple database (2 of 4)

SECTION

Section_identifier Course_number Semester Year Instructor

85 MATH2410 Fall 07 King
92 CS1310 Fall 07 Anderson
102 CS3320 Spring 08 Knuth
112 MATH2410 Fall 08 Chang
119 CS1310 Fall 08 Anderson
135 CS3380 Fall 08 Stone

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Figure 1.2 Example of a simple database (3 of 4)

GRADE_REPORT

Student_number Section_identifier Grade

17 112 B
17 119 C
8 85 A
8 92 A
8 102 B
8 135 A

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Figure 1.2 Example of a simple database (4 of 4)

PREREQUISITE

Course_number Prerequisite_number
CS3380 CS3320
CS3380 MATH2410
CS3320 CS1310

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Main Characteristics of the Database
Approach (1 of 3)
• Self-describing nature of a database system:
– A DBMS catalog stores the description of a particular database
(e.g. data structures, types, and constraints)
– The description is called meta-data*.
– This allows the DBMS software to work with different database
applications.
• Insulation between programs and data:
– Called program-data independence.
– Allows changing data structures and storage organization
without having to change the DBMS access programs.
* Some newer systems such as a few NOSQL systems need no meta-
data: they store the data definition within its structure making it self
describing
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Figure 1.3 Example of a simplified
database catalog (1 of 2)
RELATIONS

Relation_name No_of_columns
STUDENT 4
COURSE 4
SECTION 5
GRADE_REPORT 3
PREREQUISITE 2

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Figure 1.3 Example of a simplified
database catalog (2 of 2)
COLUMNS

Column_name Data_type Belongs_to_relation

Name Character (30) STUDENT
Student_number Character (4) STUDENT
Class Integer (1) STUDENT
Major Major_type STUDENT
Course_name Character (10) COURSE
Course_number XXXXNNNN COURSE
…. …. ….
…. …. ….
…. …. ….
Prerequisite_number XXXXNNNN PREREQUISITE

Note: Major_type is defined as an enumerated type with all known majors. XXXXNNNN is
used to define a type with four alphabetic characters followed by four numeric digits.
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Main Characteristics of the Database
Approach (2 of 3)
• Data Abstraction:
– A data model is used to hide storage details and
present the users with a conceptual view of the
database.
– Programs refer to the data model constructs rather
than data storage details
• Support of multiple views of the data:
– Each user may see a different view of the database,
which describes only the data of interest to that user.

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Main Characteristics of the Database
Approach (3 of 3)
• Sharing of data and multi-user transaction
processing:
– Allowing a set of concurrent users to retrieve from and to
update the database.
– Concurrency control within the DBMS guarantees that
each transaction is correctly executed or aborted
– Recovery subsystem ensures each completed transaction
has its effect permanently recorded in the database
– OLTP (Online Transaction Processing) is a major part of
database applications. This allows hundreds of concurrent
transactions to execute per second.

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Database Users

• Users may be divided into

– Those who actually use and control the database
content, and those who design, develop and maintain
database applications (called “Actors on the Scene”),
and
– Those who design and develop the DBMS software
and related tools, and the computer systems
operators (called “Workers Behind the Scene”).

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Database Users – Actors on the Scene (1of 2)
• Actors on the scene
– Database administrators:
▪ Responsible for authorizing access to the database, for
coordinating and monitoring its use, acquiring software
and hardware resources, controlling its use and
monitoring efficiency of operations.
– Database Designers:
▪ Responsible to define the content, the structure, the
constraints, and functions or transactions against the
database. They must communicate with the end-users
and understand their needs.

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Database End Users (1 of 2)
• Actors on the scene
– End-users: They use the data for queries, reports and some of
them update the database content. End-users can be
categorized into:
▪ Casual: access database occasionally when needed
▪ Naïve or Parametric: they make up a large section of the
end-user population.
– They use previously well-defined functions in the form of
“canned transactions” against the database.
– Users of Mobile Apps mostly fall in this category
– Bank-tellers or reservation clerks are parametric users
who do this activity for an entire shift of operations
– Social Media Users post and read information from
websites
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Database End Users (2 of 2)
• Sophisticated:
– These include business analysts, scientists, engineers,
others thoroughly familiar with the system capabilities.
– Many use tools in the form of software packages that work
closely with the stored database.
• Stand-alone:
– Mostly maintain personal databases using ready-to-use
packaged applications.
– An example is the user of a tax program that creates its
own internal database.
– Another example is a user that maintains a database of
personal photos and videos.
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Database Users – Actors on the Scene (2 of 2)
• System Analysts and Application Developers
This category currently accounts for a very large proportion of
the IT work force.
– System Analysts: They understand the user requirements of
naïve and sophisticated users and design applications
including canned transactions to meet those requirements.
– Application Programmers: Implement the specifications
developed by analysts and test and debug them before
deployment.
– Business Analysts: There is an increasing need for such
people who can analyze vast amounts of business data and
real-time data (“Big Data”) for better decision making related
to planning, advertising, marketing etc.

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Database Users – Actors behind the Scene
• System Designers and Implementors: Design and implement
DBMS packages in the form of modules and interfaces and test
and debug them. The DBMS must interface with applications,
language compilers, operating system components, etc.
• Tool Developers: Design and implement software systems
called tools for modeling and designing databases, performance
monitoring, prototyping, test data generation, user interface
creation, simulation etc. that facilitate building of applications and
allow using database effectively.
• Operators and Maintenance Personnel: They manage the
actual running and maintenance of the database system
hardware and software environment.

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Advantages of Using the Database Approach (1 of 2)

• Controlling redundancy in data storage and in

development and maintenance efforts.
– Sharing of data among multiple users.
• Restricting unauthorized access to data. Only the DBA
staff uses privileged commands and facilities.
• Providing persistent storage for program Objects
– E.g., Object-oriented DBMSs make program objects
persistent– see Chapter 12.
• Providing Storage Structures (e.g. indexes) for efficient
Query Processing – see Chapter 17.

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Advantages of Using the Database Approach (2 of 2)

• Providing optimization of queries for efficient processing.

• Providing backup and recovery services.
• Providing multiple interfaces to different classes of users.
• Representing complex relationships among data.
• Enforcing integrity constraints on the database.
• Drawing inferences and actions from the stored data
using deductive and active rules and triggers.

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Additional Implications of Using the
Database Approach (1 of 2)
• Potential for enforcing standards:
– This is very crucial for the success of database
applications in large organizations. Standards refer
to data item names, display formats, screens, report
structures, meta-data (description of data), Web page
layouts, etc.
• Reduced application development time:
– Incremental time to add each new application is
reduced.

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Additional Implications of Using the
Database Approach (2 of 2)
• Flexibility to change data structures:
– Database structure may evolve as new requirements
are defined.
• Availability of current information:
– Extremely important for on-line transaction systems
such as shopping, airline, hotel, car reservations.
• Economies of scale:
– Wasteful overlap of resources and personnel can be
avoided by consolidating data and applications across
departments.

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Historical Development of Database
Technology (1 of 3)

• Early Database Applications:

– The Hierarchical and Network Models were introduced in
mid 1960s and dominated during the seventies.
– A bulk of the worldwide database processing still occurs
using these models, particularly, the hierarchical model
using IBM’s IMS system.
• Relational Model based Systems:
– Relational model was originally introduced in 1970, was
heavily researched and experimented within IBM
Research and several universities.
– Relational DBMS Products emerged in the early 1980s.

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Historical Development of Database
Technology (2 of 3)

• Object-oriented and emerging applications:

– Object-Oriented Database Management Systems (OODB
MSs) were introduced in late 1980s and early 1990s to
cater to the need of complex data processing in CAD and
other applications.
▪ Their use has not taken off much.
– Many relational DBMSs have incorporated object
database concepts, leading to a new category called
object-relational DBMSs (ORDBMSs)
– Extended relational systems add further capabilities (e.g.
for multimedia data, text, XML, and other data types)

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Historical Development of Database
Technology (3 of 3)

• Data on the Web and E-commerce Applications:

– Web contains data in HTML (Hypertext markup
language) with links among pages.
– This has given rise to a new set of applications and
E-commerce is using new standards like XML
(eXtended Markup Language). (see Ch 13). apter

– Script programming languages such as PHP and

JavaScript allow generation of dynamic Web pages
that are partially generated from a database (see
Ch 11).
apter

▪ Also allow database updates through Web

pages
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Extending Database Capabilities (1 of 3)
• New functionality is being added to DBMSs in the following areas:
– Scientific Applications – Physics, Chemistry, Biology - Genetics
– Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and Astronomy
– XML (eXtensible Markup Language)
– Image Storage and Management
– Audio and Video Data Management
– Data Warehousing and Data Mining – a very major area for future
development using new technologies (see Chapters 28-29)
– Spatial Data Management and Location Based Services
– Time Series and Historical Data Management

• The above gives rise to new research and development in incorporating

new data types, complex data structures, new operations and storage and
indexing schemes in database systems.

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Extending Database Capabilities (2 of 3)
• Background since the advent of the 21st Century:
– First decade of the 21st century has seen tremendous
growth in user generated data and automatically
collected data from applications and search engines.
– Social Media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter
are generating millions of transactions a day and
businesses are interested to tap into this data to
“understand” the users
– Cloud Storage and Backup is making unlimited
amount of storage available to users and applications

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Extending Database Capabilities (3 of 3)
• Emergence of Big Data Technologies and NOSQL databases
– New data storage, management and analysis technology was
necessary to deal with the onslaught of data in petabytes a day (10**15
bytes or 1000 terabytes) in some applications – this started being
commonly called as “Big Data”.
– Hadoop (which originated from Yahoo) and Mapreduce Programming
approach to distributed data processing (which originated from Google)
as well as the Google file system have given rise to Big Data
technologies (Chapter 25). Further enhancements are taking place in
the form of Spark based technology.
– NOSQL (Not Only SQL- where SQL is the de facto standard language
for relational DBMSs) systems have been designed for rapid search and
retrieval from documents, processing of huge graphs occurring on social
networks, and other forms of unstructured data with flexible models of
transaction processing (Chapter 24).

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When not to use a DBMS (1 of 2)
• Main inhibitors (costs) of using a DBMS:
– High initial investment and possible need for additional
hardware.
– Overhead for providing generality, security, concurrency control,
recovery, and integrity functions.
• When a DBMS may be unnecessary:
– If the database and applications are simple, well defined, and not
expected to change.
– If access to data by multiple users is not required.
• When a DBMS may be infeasible:
– In embedded systems where a general purpose DBMS may not
fit in available storage

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When not to use a DBMS (2 of 2)

• When no DBMS may suffice:

– If there are stringent real-time requirements that may
not be met because of DBMS overhead (e.g.,
telephone switching systems)
– If the database system is not able to handle the
complexity of data because of modeling limitations
(e.g., in complex genome and protein databases)
– If the database users need special operations not
supported by the DBMS (e.g., GIS and location based
services).

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Chapter Summary
• Types of Databases and Database Applications

• Basic Definitions

• Typical DBMS Functionality

• Example of a Database (University)

• Main Characteristics of the Database Approach

• Types of Database Users

• Advantages of Using the Database Approach

• Historical Development of Database Technology

• Extending Database Capabilities

• When Not to Use Databases

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Copyright

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